


Centerporn Tower, Or, I Dare You (To Move)

by mcgooglykins



Category: Merlin (TV) RPF
Genre: Hand Jobs, M/M, Truth or Dare, mentions of penguins, public debauchery, too much vegemite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgooglykins/pseuds/mcgooglykins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It all started out innocently enough, although where Bradley James is concerned, innocence is rarely to be found.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Centerporn Tower, Or, I Dare You (To Move)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in 2009 for the merlinaustralia LJ group and I'm just as sorry and horrified with myself now as I was then.

It all started out innocently enough, although where Bradley James is concerned, innocence is rarely to be found. Not even if you turn your head sideways and squint really hard. Bradley was bored, but this was not his fault. Just ask him. It was the airline’s fault, because in-flight entertainment was meant to be _entertaining_ , for crying out loud, especially on a twenty-one hour flight, and the rubbish he’d been forced to watch so far was anything but. It also wasn’t Bradley’s fault that he didn’t have anything better to do, no backup plan in case of such monumental in-flight entertainment failure, because who expects these sorts of catastrophes to happen? Who plans in case of the event of such a soul-destroying tragedy as this?  
  
Colin Morgan, apparently. No, Colin, being the Irish bastard that he was, had bought a book, and he was reading it. Out of spite. He didn’t even have the decency to look sorry about it.  
  
“Colin,” Bradley began.  
  
“No,” Colin had replied, and that had been an end to that.  
  
For about five minutes.   
  
After that, Bradley had had enough of being a mature, respectful travelling partner, and embarked on a Mission, codenamed Operation CHIC, for ‘Colin Had It Coming’. While Colin resolutely ignored him, Bradley fiddled with the air conditioning vents, jiggled in his seat, whistled (badly), got up to get things out of the overhead compartment seven times, and air-drummed to the in-flight radio, making sure to elbow Colin every six beats. Colin lasted a grand total of thirty-four minutes and seventeen seconds, which was a new record. Secretly, Colin was rather pleased about that. Outwardly, though, when he finally put his book down and levelled Bradley with a glare that could, if pressed, shatter solid rock, he wasn’t exactly the friendliest of people. Lesser men would have quailed; Bradley just beamed.  
  
“Are we there yet?” Bradley asked, eyes wide with feigned innocence.  
  
“You’re bored,” Colin said flatly, fishing another book out of the pocket in front of him, “I get it, but I’m enjoying this book, actually, so you can just sit there quietly, or read this instead. Silently. To yourself. As in, ‘do not read this book out loud or only one of us will get off this plane alive and that one won’t be you’.” Colin knew Bradley too well.  
  
“Colin,” Bradley said accusingly, “you are the biggest girl alive.” He stared down at a regency romance, mildly horrified. Colin just smirked. “I bet there aren’t even any explosions in this,” Bradley grumbled.  
  
“There are,” Colin lied, “and I’d tell you about the space-ninjas, only it would spoil the ending.”  
  
Bradley thumped him.  
  
***  
  
“Who takes four hours to read Persuasion?” Colin asked incredulously, “It’s not even two hundred pages long!”  
  
“Some of us,” Bradley sniffed, “have brains that are busy doing many, many other more important things at once, so reading, not being important, gets moved right down on the priority list.”  
  
“You’re just slow,” Colin snorted. “You’re one of those dense footballer types who can barely tie their laces, and resort to violence at almost every opportunity because their vocabulary only has three words, all of which are variations of ‘ugg’.”  
  
Bradley thumped him again.  
  
“Give me something else to do, then,” he said, as Colin rubbed his arm and said things about domestic violence and proving his point, “since you’re ever so smart.”  
  
“Eye-Spy?” Colin suggested.  
  
“You always cheat,” Bradley said, “you always use the Gaelic word, and I could have named whatever it was a hundred times, and still you’d be saying I’d got it wrong just because I don’t speak leprechaun.”  
  
“You suggest something then,” Colin said, “or I’m going back to my book and I won’t talk to you even if you grow an extra head – don’t even go there, James,” he added, as Bradley leered and opened his mouth to say something undoubtedly filthy.  
  
“Fine,” Bradley said, and thought for a moment. “How about truth or dare, only without the truth part, because that’s boring.”  
  
“Alright,” said Colin, “I’ll go first, then. I dare you to sit quietly for the rest of this flight.”  
  
“The point of a game is for there to be fun involved,” Bradley pointed out, “and there is exactly zero fun in sitting here quietly.”   
  
Which was the exact point when things began to get out of hand.   
  
Colin had a think, and then dared Bradley to ask the stewardess if he could order a pizza (she replied, in a bored tone, that dinner would be served in half an hour); Bradley retaliated when dinner came by daring Colin to eat the normal meal, and give Bradley the vegetarian one (and was mildly disappointed when Colin didn’t even complain, and Bradley got stuck with lentils). Colin then dared Bradley to use the bathroom and complain loudly that ‘it feels just like giving birth,’ and tried not to choke to death when Bradley delivered the performance of his life.  
  
“One day,” Colin splutters, when Bradley squeezes back into his seat by the window, “you will win an Oscar for that, and I might even applaud you.”  
  
“One day,” Bradley replies, “you might also be able to think up a good dare,” and promptly tells Colin to streak. Colin, because he is a jammy Irish bastard who cheats like nobody’s business and is also jammy, and a bastard, doesn’t bat an eyelid, leans over, and draws a great big black streak over the front of Bradley’s complimentary in-flight magazine, with his stupid complimentary in-flight biro.  
  
Bradley thumps him, and vows silently to be more explicit in his instructions from here on in.  
  
The stewardess comes along and turns off all the lights now, in a not-so-subtle way of telling everyone that while they’re on this flight they are all five years old, and bedtime is now, thank you very much, and just before Colin says goodnight, he whispers quietly in Bradley’s ear, breath sending ghostly shivers down Bradley’s spine, “I dare you not to think about penguins.”  
  
That bastard.   
  
“I hate you,” says Bradley, because he knows he’s lost.  
  
“Sweet dreams,” replies Colin, sickly sweet, because he knows Bradley knows he’s lost. After all, it’s simply not possible to not think about penguins after somebody has mentioned them. It’s just one of those things.  
  
***  
  
Of course, Bradley demands a rematch as soon as the plane touches down at Sydney International.   
  
“After all,” he says as they join the throng trying to squeeze through customs, “not only are you a completely ruthless, cheating bastard who has to bring penguins, innocent penguins, into this, but you also lied to me about space ninjas and explosions. You could say, actually, that you owe me.”  
  
Colin laughs. “I could,” he concedes, “but I won’t. I will let you go first, though.”  
  
Bradley takes what he can get, and dares Colin to tell the customs lady that the purpose of his visit to Australia is to see if koalas really do fly at night when nobody is watching, like on the Simpsons that time. Which he does, only he also winks at the girl, who laughs and blushes and, much to Bradley’s disappointment, doesn’t tell Colin that he’s not funny, or that he’s going to be arrested and strip searched and deported for being a cheesy wanker.  
  
Colin dares Bradley to ride on the luggage belt. Bradley is asked to get off, very kindly but firmly, by two frighteningly large security guards, and Colin doesn’t help him, because he’s too busy laughing behind the pot plants.   
  
It’s the middle of the afternoon, and they’re met outside, in the sweltering heat, by a very lovely young lady in a no-nonsense business suit, hair immaculate despite the humidity, who chats almost non-stop about itineraries and bookings the entire cab ride to the hotel. She cheerfully waves them away eventually, all timetables and smiles and ‘see you bright and early’, and Bradley thinks he may hate her, just a little. Colin suggests that, maybe, he might just be jetlagged and he won’t hate her quite so much in the morning, and Bradley decides he might just hate Colin a little bit, too.  
  
There’s a complimentary jar of Vegemite by the kettle in Bradley’s room, which inspires him to dare Colin to eat a dirty great spoonful of the stuff. Bradley ends up thumping Colin again, only this time trying to help, while Colin tries to cough up his lungs, his stomach, and his left kidney.  
  
“That is disgusting,” Colin splutters, in between trying to wash his mouth out with soap, and a bottle of cola from the mini bar, “and I hope you _die_ because _I hate you_ and I am _so getting you back for that one_ , James.”  
  
Retribution has to wait, however, because what with the sheerly ridiculous number of time zones they’ve both recently passed through, they’re both completely knackered, and end up passed out on top of Bradley’s bed with the air conditioning up full.  
  
***  
  
The next few days passed by in a blur. First, there was the convention to get through. Sitting at a table and signing your name over and over again, trying to make small talk with strangers, who tended to be even stranger than your normal, everyday brand of stranger, who was just someone you didn’t know. These strangers were dressed up in funny costumes, and made suggestive comments that often made Colin blush, and always made Bradley laugh.  
  
“So,” said Bradley between groups of giggling girls, “what magnificent challenge are you going to set for me next?”  
  
“Nervous, are you?” Colin grinned, “Can’t stand the suspense?”  
  
“Push off,” Bradley said amiably, and then, “You can’t think of one, can you?”  
  
“I’m working on it,” Colin admitted.  
  
“Well while you’re working on it,” Bradley said, scrawling ‘love Bradley’ across yet another picture of his face, “I get another go. Because that’s the rules.”  
  
“You’re full of rot, “ Colin said, posing for a photo.  
  
“I am full of brilliant ideas,” said Bradley, and dares Colin to fabricate some horrendous lie to tell during the Q&A. Colin tells some poor kid dressed as Guinevere that Bradley stays up at night reading Buffy fan fiction on the internet, and that he especially likes the Buffy/Merlin crossovers, and has printed off his favourites and keeps them in a folder, and takes them with him everywhere. It’s partially true, so Bradley insists he gets another go, seeing as Colin still hasn’t come up with anything.   
  
They have a night in Melbourne, for an interview, and when Rove asks, “So, who would you turn gay for?” Bradley puts on this shit-eating grin and says, “Go on Colin, I dare you.”   
  
Colin stares daggers for a minute and says, slowly, “Well, Santiago, who plays Lancelot, has these incredible cheekbones, and really, we’d make a great pair, but, on the whole I think that Gaius would suit me better. Very smart, is Gaius.”  
  
“Smart is sexy,” Rove says.  
  
“Bradley here,” Colin continues, mercilessly, “it’s sad, really, but he has the most ridiculous crush on Tony, who plays Uther. Follows him around on set like a puppy. Every now and then the crew will give him a biscuit as a treat, they feel so sorry for him. Only if he’s good, though.”  
  
“A puppy,” Bradley says later that night, sprawled over Colin’s bed, pretending he’s not watching some god-awful soap opera set at a beach sadly lacking in explosions or giant Baywatch boobs. “That’s going to be all over the internet by tomorrow, you know. Katie’s going to have a field day.”  
  
Colin, hair still damp from the shower, just grins lazily. “It’s most definitely my turn, now,” he says, “You don’t get any more goes. Not until you’ve done my dare.”  
  
“And what dare might that be?” Bradley props himself up on one elbow, trying to sound uninterested and failing dismally.   
  
Colin just shakes his head, “I’ll think of something,” he promises, “and it will be the dare to end all dares.”  
  
***  
  
Back in Sydney, they have a few days off before they have to fly back, for sightseeing and touristing and just general mucking about. The beach is nice, and Colin doesn’t get too badly burnt, and Bradley tans an almost ridiculous amount, turning this sort of golden honey-brown, and crows about it so much that Colin is forced to tell him that he’s not in the least bit attractive when he looks like some sort of chiselled Greek god, if only to shut him up for five minutes while he does that pouty thing he’s perfected. Which Colin also tells him isn’t attractive. Which is also a blatant lie.  
  
The last day of freedom, before they fly back home at ungodly o’clock in the morning, finds them all alone, at the top of Centrepoint Tower in the middle of the city, watching the sunset.   
  
“I wish the kiosk wasn’t shut,” Bradley grumbled, resting his chin on the juncture of Colin’s neck, “I could do with a drink.” Colin merely murmurs an agreement, and leans back against Bradley a little more. They stay like that for a while, Bradley’s arms wrapped tight around Colin, and Colin fighting the urge to ruin the moment by saying something ridiculously, embarrassingly girly and sentimental. When Bradley plants a whisper light kiss behind Colin’s ear, though, genius strikes. Colin has Bradley’s final dare.   
  
He wriggles around in the embrace, grabs the back of Bradley’s head with one hand, hooks two fingers of the other in the waistband of his jeans, and kisses him with serious intention. When they break apart, Bradley’s eyes are a little dazed, and Colin grins and says, voice low and husky, accent thick, “I dare you, Bradley James.”  
  
Bradley wastes three precious seconds from the shock, but then, Colin finds his back pressed against the glass, and his jeans undone faster than should be possible. He’s already half hard, and tries to get Bradley’s jeans undone too, but Bradley bats his hand away. “Later,” he says, capturing Colin’s lips in a bruising kiss, and Colin would protest, but Bradley’s got his hand wrapped around him, his thumb brushing the head, which is already slightly damp, and Colin stops being able to form coherent thoughts, so he wraps his arms around Bradley’s neck, closes his eyes, and freefalls.  
  
***  
  
“Bradley,” Colin chokes out, and Bradley kisses him again, rough and messy, and says “Come for me, Colin,” and Colin does.  
  
***  
  
“You’re right,” says Bradley, kissing Colin’s neck. Colin is still flushed and boneless, his hair dishevelled, shirt halfway up his back, and he’s still coming down, so all he manages in reply is a faint “nnrggh?”  
  
Bradley laughs softly. “You’re right,” he says again, “that was the dare to end all dares.” Colin just smiles, and draws him in for another kiss.


End file.
